


clothed with the sun

by zedille



Category: Star Trek - Various Authors, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Mirror Universe
Genre: Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29110206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zedille/pseuds/zedille
Summary: Fear will be your enemy, and death its consequence.The Emperor, through the looking-glass: Philippa Georgiou, on her own terms.
Relationships: Michael Burnham & Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Mirror Michael Burnham & Mirror Philippa Georgiou
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	1. crowned upon the stars

**Author's Note:**

> An expansion of my drabble [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28116570).

_Attend, attend, all foe or friend  
_ _A tale for you at journey’s end…_

* * *

**2238**

Philippa Georgiou had been captain of the _ISS Shenzhou_ for a few years when the Klingon incursions began. Conflict between the Terran and Klingon empires was normal, and had reoccurred periodically ever since the two empires made first contact, but the Klingons were unusually coordinated this time. Information out of Terra was scarce, but as a member of a squadron assigned to patrol the Klingon border, she could tell the war was not going as well as the Admiralty made it seem.

Georgiou knew her crew enough to know when they were getting restless, though she couldn’t blame them: patrol duty _was_ boring. There was no glory or prizes to be won in interminable skirmishes and retreats, or in squabbling repeatedly over the same few light-years of space. Extra time in the agonizer booths settled down the more vocal crew members before it got so far as mutiny, but that wouldn’t last forever. Something had to change.

Unlike the other captains in her squadron, Georgiou had been an engineer before she claimed the captaincy of the _Shenzhou_ , and she still retained an engineer’s creativity. Let those brutes from the so-called command track continue to follow orders like sheep; Georgiou chose to make her own way.

The _Shenzhou_ shifted her battle tactics to prioritize capturing vessels and their passengers. Under Georgiou’s personal attention, careful questioning of Klingon prisoners, appropriately cross-referenced, produced actionable intelligence about the geography of their homeworld. Although this shift towards capturing ships rather than destroying them lowered the all-important kills ratio used for calculating prizes, Georgiou’s hold over her crew was strong enough that they obeyed without significant complaint.

Likewise, when she ordered them to set course for Qo’noS under stealth, disregarding their stated mission orders, they obeyed. Georgiou personally led the team of her most competent officers that infiltrated the planet and deployed hydro bombs in its volcanic core. The rest of the squadron followed the apparently deserting _Shenzhou_ to Qo’noS, arriving in time to help thin out the Klingon ships desperately fleeing their ruined homeworld.

More Klingons escaped than Georgiou would have liked, and inevitably they would regroup, but this was still a monumental achievement. Qo’noS had been rendered utterly uninhabitable, its continents broken and its atmosphere filled with dust. The Klingons would spend the next ten years, at a minimum, scrabbling to reestablish themselves from their colonies. Georgiou had single-handedly broken the power of the Klingon empire.

* * *

Officially, mutiny was a capital crime in the Terran Starfleet: the chain of command was sacrosanct, and orders were passed down from the all-knowing Emperor in her infinite wisdom, et cetera. In practice, the Empire cared only for results, and disobedience could be disregarded or passed off as “initiative” if the political winds changed.

Georgiou had performed a massive service to the Empire, but she had acted outside of her orders. The abrupt ending of the Klingon campaign had also overturned the web of patronage arrangements governing this part of space — if nothing else, war was profitable. In unilaterally moving against the Klingons, Georgiou had made her name, but she had also made enemies. Initiative was only desirable in certain quantities, after all; too much, and captains with pretensions above their station would soon find themselves removed from those stations entirely. So there she was, reassigned from the cleanup effort and shoved on a publicity tour while the Admiralty decided what to do with her and if she would ever be permitted to return to active duty.

The orphanage on Doctari Alpha was essentially the same as all the other orphanages Georgiou had visited in the sector, hastily built for the young survivors of Klingon raids. The children were all miserable, the staff apathetic, and the administrators clearly corrupt. Georgiou was ostensibly there to extol the power of the Empire and awaken patriotic fervor in its subjects, but she could tell just from the exterior of this trash heap that her efforts would be wasted.

As was typical for these dog-and-pony-shows, the residents of this orphanage had already been rounded up and hastily scrubbed down before Georgiou and her minder arrived, and they were all assembled in the courtyard waiting.

“You’re Starfleet, aren’t you?” someone shouted, before her Admiralty-assigned minder could launch into the usual speech. To Georgiou’s surprise, the speaker was one of the orphanage’s children, scrawny-looking and scowling from where she at in the corner.

The orphanage caretaker present bobbed a nervous bow. “I'm sorry, sirs… we’ve been having trouble with this one —” he aimed a kick at the offender — “since she got here. Please proceed. Maybe she’ll finally learn something from it.”

Georgiou waved him off. This was the most entertaining thing that had happened since she’d been assigned on this publicity tour. “I am indeed a member of Starfleet,” she said indulgently. “Do go on, child.”

The girl squared her shoulders. “They told us you defeated the Klingons.”

“Have some respect!” shouted the caretaker, but he was ignored.

“The Klingons killed my parents. Why didn’t you kill the Klingons sooner?” asked the girl accusingly. “Then they would still be alive and I wouldn’t be stuck here in this dump.”

The caretaker moved to strike the girl, who shrugged the blow off.

Georgiou said, “You’re right. It took time to gather the information needed, but I wish I had gotten to the Klingon homeworld sooner. Every human life lost to those savages is unacceptable.”

The Admiralty’s minder was glaring at her pointedly. Georgiou mentally rolled her eyes but took the point to begin her prewritten speech.

Despite representing the best efforts of the Empire’s propaganda department, the speech failed to make any observable impact on the orphanage’s whelps. Most of them looked as disinterested as they had been when she arrived, and the one who had shouted at Georgiou earlier still looked bitterly resentful. Grief had broken the other children, but this girl had taken that grief and turned it into anger, a much more useful emotion. Georgiou had met commissioned Starfleet officers with less self-awareness.

The minder was trying to get her to leave, but she paused and then walked over to the girl. The other orphans scattered before her.

“What’s your name, child?”

The girl met Georgiou’s eyes defiantly. “Michael Burnham.”

“And how old are you?”

“Twelve,” spat Burnham, utterly uncowed.

When Georgiou was twelve, she had been on Earth preparing to enter Starfleet Academy. Out on the frontier, there wouldn’t be much of a future for these brats unless they had relatives willing to fetch them home. Otherwise, most of the brats would probably end up as unskilled laborers only a few steps up from slaves. The further away from Earth, the thinner the Empire’s pretensions of being a meritocracy.

What a _waste_ it would be to leave Burnham here to such a life.

“Do you want to join Starfleet?” said Georgiou impulsively.

Burnham, the orphanage caretaker, and Admiralty’s minder all stared at her.

Undeterred, Georgiou continued, “If you want revenge for your parents, then come with me. What’s there for you to lose?”

The orphanage’s caretaker looked indifferent at the thought of losing one of his charges; the Admiralty’s minder looked scandalized. As before, Burnham and Georgiou ignored them.

Burnham stared at Georgiou, her eyes huge in her scrawny face.

“Do you really want to stay here and scrabble in the dirt for the rest of your life? I can give you the stars, child.”

Georgiou extended a hand.

Hesitantly, Burnham reached out and took it.

* * *

It wasn’t unheard of for successful captains to be called back to Terra for an audience with the Emperor, as a reminder of where the real power in the Empire was and who pulled their strings. Georgiou took her summons as a sign that she had been forgiven for her actions on Qo’noS: why would her superiors bother to summon her to Terra for anything else?

The trip back to Terra was quiet. Her crew had finally accepted Michael’s presence onboard the _Shenzhou_ , reinforced by a few deliberately drawn-out executions. Even her first officer had come around from his initial disbelief. He was too disciplined to say anything to her face, but Georgiou knew Lorca.

When she first took in Michael, her intention had been to enroll her in the schools that would prepare her for the Academy once Michael was ready, but the process was taking longer than she’d expected. Michael had night terrors — entirely understandable, considering the trauma of hearing her parents brutally murdered by the Klingons — but such perceived weakness would be fatal among Michael’s peers. So for now, Michael stayed onboard the _Shenzhou_ , which meant she was going back to Earth with them. Georgiou helped the change of scenery might help.

When they arrived at Earth, they were all summoned to the Imperial palace complex with her, where they were left to wait with the crews of other ships involved in the Klingon campaigns. Georgiou made mental notes of who made snide comments about Michael — it would be beneath her dignity to resort to violence here, but revenge had no deadline.

Standard protocol for these audiences dictated that the Emperor would summon them into her presence and address them all at once. The majordomo summoning Georgiou individually and by name was a distinct departure from the usual proceedings. Even given her unique role in conceiving of the plan that destroyed Qo’noS, individual audiences typically did not happen until flag rank, and promotions were typically granted in public, with witnesses.

But the Emperor’s will was not to be defied; Georgiou had no choice but to leave Michael with Lorca and the rest of her crew. She could feel unfriendly eyes staring at her as she left the antechamber behind, an uncomfortable reminder that she wasalone and in unfamiliar territory.

The Emperor stood waiting in the Imperial throne room. Georgiou went through the procedures that the protocol officers had drilled relentlessly — handing over her agonizer, saluting, and then reciting the usual phrases about the glory of the Empire.

Her Imperial Majesty Emperor Hoshi Sato II Augustus Iaponius Centaurius, Overlord of Vulcan, Regina Andor, watched the formalities with cold eyes. “At ease,” she said finally. “Captain Georgiou. We are pleased you have come to Terra.”

“The _Shenzhou_ made full speed as soon as we received the order,” said Georgiou.

“And are you always so quick to obey orders?”

Georgiou forced herself to smile. “I would hardly dare question direct orders from the Emperor.”

“In any case, we can hardly question your results on Qo’noS,” Sato said. “We thank you for your service.”

“It was my duty and my honor,” said Georgiou, wondering why she had received the dubious honor of an individual audience. Surely this sort of thing would have had more effect with an audience?

Sato said smoothly, “As is to be expected from such a fine officer. Would that all our captains had such ingenuity. May your service continue.”

At least this didn’t sound like an Imperial reprimand…? Georgiou breathed a little easier.

“I’ve also heard that you’ve taken in a ward,” said Sato, shifting into a more causal register.

“Yes, Your Majesty. She was a foundling in one of the orphanages on Alpha Doctari.”

“And you don’t think she’ll distract you from your duties to the Empire?” said Sato.

Where was this going…? Sato’s tone was too neutral to draw any conclusions.

“I understand your concern, Your Majesty,” said Georgiou carefully. “But on the contrary, I find her presence a constant reminder of my duty. Her parents were killed by the Klingons. If I had moved against Qo’noS sooner, they might still be alive.”

Sato stared at her. “So the rumors are true. You’ve grown soft.”

Georgiou recoiled at her disgusted tone.

“Children are never a good idea,” the Emperor continued. “They will only betray you.”

“As is only proper,” said Georgiou blandly. Sato II had, of course, had overthrown her predecessor and genetic forbear, Hoshi Sato I. If the rumors were true, Sato I had been smothered in her sleep. 

“You’ve succumbed to sentiment,” Sato continued, shaking her head. “This is worse than what the psych profiles projected. I’d thought that having you send her away would be sufficient, but that’s clearly not the case. I order you to kill Michael Burnham.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“She’s weak. She’s not worthy of you, or the Empire. She will only weigh you down.”

Georgiou opened her mouth and then closed it, just as quickly. Only a fool would argue to the Emperor’s face.

“You don’t believe me,” said Sato, almost kindly. “That’s only to be expected. Only I know all.”

As the Emperor turned to order her guards to bring Michael Burnham, Georgiou tried to make sense of the Emperor’s motives. Was this mere cruelty for cruelty’s sake, or a demonstration of Imperial power, or a much-delayed punishment for her initiative on Qo’noS?

And then the guards were gone, and Sato and Georgiou were alone in the throne room. “Listen to me,” said Sato. “You know of the _Defiant_ , do you not?”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” said Georgiou. Any child in the Empire knew of the ship — a top-secret advanced weapons project — that Sato I had used to secure her throne.

“The _Defiant_ is the symbol of the triumph of the Empire and our dominance not only in scientific and military might, but also in _time_. As the ship came to my predecessor from the future to complete the circle, so you must act in accordance to what has been and will be. The _Defiant_ ’s files were very clear. You must kill Michael Burnham. So it has been, and so it will be.”

Georgiou bowed her head in seeming obedience to hide her face and buy herself time to think. She didn’t have long before Sato would be expecting a response.

Georgiou could believe that the _Defiant_ really had come to Sato I from the future — stranger things than time travel had happened, and Sato dismissing her guards before mentioning it confirmed its secrecy — but could the rest of her story be believed? Sato II was a clone, bound by her own genetics; no wonder she believed in destiny. Perhaps some other Georgiou had killed her Michael, but this Georgiou mistrusted the idea of blindly following a course set by others. She had seen potential that day on Doctari Alpha, and she knew that she could make something great of Michael Burnham.

Another part of Georgiou’s mind was coming to the rapid conclusion — Michael had already been summoned. Even if Georgiou somehow managed to convince Sato to accept a banishment for Michael rather than an execution, Georgiou had her own enemies. Michael would forever be marked if Georgiou cast her off; she would never be safe.

There was only one way that both Georgiou and Michael could make it out of the Imperial palace alive.

Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears. She had very little time before the guards would return with Michael, and by then it would be too late.

“As the Emperor wishes,” said Georgiou, and then she came out of her bow and lunged for Sato.

* * *

The struggle was quick.

Sato I had been a serving Starfleet officer in her youth, and (according to gossip) maintained a semblance of that fighting strength, but Sato II had been raised in the lap of luxury as the Imperial heir. Unlike Georgiou, who had made her own way up through Starfleet, she had never known what it was to truly fight for her own survival. She tried using Georgiou’s agonizer against her, but Georgiou was used to fighting through the pain. Sato went down easily.

The dull crack of a broken neck echoed through the throne room.

There were footsteps rapidly approaching, no doubt drawn by the sounds of violence. Georgiou grabbed the ceremonial knife from Sato’s belt and slit her throat, just to be sure. Blood pooled on the marble flooring; Georgiou worked around it as she took Sato’s many-rayed crown and placed it on her own head, then arranged herself pointedly before the throne.

The guards burst in, followed immediately by the crew of the _Shenzhou_ — she noted with relief that Michael was present and unharmed — but they all froze a few steps past the entrance of the throne room. Georgiou knew what they saw: Sato II’s corpse on the ground, and her standing over it, wearing the imperial crown of thorns.

“The Emperor is dead!” she shouted.

Lorca was the first to catch on. “Long live the Emperor!”

And slowly, gathering strength, the others echoed: “Long live the Emperor! All hail Emperor Georgiou!”

From her position hiding behind Lorca, Michael stared at her with huge eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoshi Sato I is from the [mirror episode of ST:ENT](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/In_a_Mirror,_Darkly_\(episode\)); her successor Sato II is mentioned in the Georgiou tie-in novel _Die Standing_ (as well as in the mirror Spock novel _The Sorrows of Empire_ ). The information that Sato II is working from came from the _USS Defiant_ , which left the prime universe in 2268 (ie, ten years after Discovery season 1).
> 
> I'm looking for a beta -- if you're interested, please let me know here or on Tumblr (at the same username)!
> 
> Chapter 2 should be up at the end of February.


	2. gratia plena

_You promised us new worlds to conquer. You promised us spoils, never-ending growth..._

* * *

**2250**

When Georgiou entered the throne room on Terra, she’d had no intentions other than making it through her audience with the Emperor. Claiming the throne hadn’t even crossed her mind. While the Empire practiced violent methods of personnel turnover, she well knew that _holding_ a position was much more difficult than holding it long-term. Her rise to the captaincy of the _Shenzhou_ had been meticulously planned ahead of time, involving careful overtures to other officers to ensure her power base, and that had only been a move from Chief Engineer to Captain. Moving from the lowly Captain of a single ship to the Emperor was an entirely laughable idea, until suddenly she was standing over Sato II’s corpse being hailed as her successor.

Claiming the throne had been easy, securing and holding that rank would be more difficult, and passing it on — well. Questions of succession could come later. The captain of a Terran starship might retire, but there was no such concept for the Emperor. The dismount from the highest rank would be treacherous indeed; not since the first Rome had a transfer of imperial authority occurred peacefully, and Georgiou’s own ascension was merely the most recent example of this.

At the end of her reign, Sato II had been little more than a figurehead while the different factions in the Admiralty struggled for influence behind her back. Georgiou actually suspected that one or another of those factions had turned a blind eye to the events in the throne room that day and allowed the transfer of power. Sato II’s death in her own palace could have been very easily prevented, as could Georgiou’s ascension, but it suited their purposes to have a new, inexperienced Emperor. All this was typical Imperial power politics; Georgiou would bide her time and watch her back until she had consolidated her own power base. In the meantime, she would play along.

The Imperial bureaucracy mostly ran itself, handling the basic mechanics of governance while the Admiralty focused on steering the course of the Empire. Georgiou had no intention of being a figurehead as Sato had been, but she knew better than to make any obvious moves. Easing her way into power would take time.

Now that she was mostly bound to the palace, Georgiou had to rely more than ever on her officers from the _Shenzhou_. She needed to cultivate enough subordinates to replace the officers from Sato’s reign, but until then she could trust only her former crew. They were too closely tied to her to survive her fall and they knew it, but they were happy enough to receive promotions, their own captaincies and starships, to carry out Georgoiu’s will in sensitive missions and delicate assassinations.

Georgiou looked forward to the day Michael could join Starfleet, as she had offered on Doctari Alpha. Michael was doing very well, soaking up knowledge and skills from her tutors. Her might terrors had finally passed once she became accustomed to her new situation and living in the palace, and Georgiou could dedicate more time to matters of state. Still, she valued the time she spent with her ward. Their daily spars were always enjoyable, and seeing Michael’s constant progress was all the more satisfying when Georgiou’s progress with the Empire was stalled.

The day that Michael called her _mother_ for the first time was as sweet as the day Georgiou purged the last of Sato’s loyalists.

* * *

The Terran Empire was at a crossroads.

The Empire had a long history of riding on the coattails of others, though this was hardly what the official record said. Michael, like all the other children in the Empire, was taught that the modern age of the Terran Empire had begun in 2063 when Zephram Cochrane killed the Vulcans who made first contact; what was not discussed was how the humans had then cannibalized the Vulcan survey ship for parts, which were then incorporated into Cochrane’s _Phoenix_. The fledgling human space program was dramatically slingshotted forward by the technology from a more advanced spacefaring race.

This process had repeated itself as the Terrans expanded into space and encountered (and conquered) other species. Everything was fair game: weapons, shielding tech, engines, starship designs, all scavenged from battlefield wreckage or captured ships, and then reverse-engineered and cobbled together and turned against their creators. The Terran Empire and its Starfleet were human-supremacist organizations, but they weren’t above using the technology from the aliens they despised.

The most recent technological boom in the Empire in Sato I’s reign had actually been due to the _Defiant_ , which true to Sato’s word had originated from a century into the future. To Georgiou’s surprise, Sato had still not told the entire truth. The confirmation of time travel was enough of a shock, but the _Defiant_ had come not just from the future, but the future of _another universe_.

Georgiou would have dismissed the ship’s records and the strange, alien-loving, pacifistic “Federation” they described as the ravings of a madman, but no madman could have created as perfect an illusion as was present on this ship. Everything on the ship down to the nuts and bolts had an alternate quantum signature, and the ship’s memory banks held the life histories — all cross-linked and internally consistent — of a whole galaxy of doppelgängers, overlapping unsettlingly to various degrees with the reality Georgiou knew. Those historical records ended another twenty years or so in the future, when the _Defiant_ had apparently left its original timeline for this one.

Out of curiosity about Sato II’s words in the throne room, Georgiou looked herself up in the _Defiant_ ’s memory banks. This apparent other Philippa Georgoiu had also captained the _Shenzhou_ ; she was a well-regarded captain who died unceremoniously at the beginning of a war with the Klingons — the “Battle of the Binary Stars”, they named it. Michael (also orphaned, but raised by _Vulcans?_ absurd!) by this point served as “her” first officer, but she then took a leave of absence for most of the war. Michael eventually resumed a brief career that ended unceremoniously when her ship was destroyed in an accident. And that was it; there was no glory even by this strange mirror universe’s bloodless standards, and no betrayal except perhaps for how milquetoast and pathetic her life was. Where had Sato II gotten her strange conviction that Michael would betray her?

The alternate Georgiou had certainly never become Emperor. Georgiou had come to power and reached the throne after defeating the Klingons on their homeworld. She wasn’t so arrogant as to believe that they were a settled question; it was entirely possible that Michael would have to beat them down after they regrouped at their colonies, as had apparently happened in the _Defiant_ ’s universe, but the circumstances that had lead to Georgiou’s death by Klingons would not happen. Georgiou had already escaped the fate of her alternate self — she had pre-empted destiny, if such a thing even existed. She was sure Michael would also avoid the mediocrity and obscurity of the fate written here.

It was strange that Sato II had put so much faith in the _Defiant_ ’s records, considering her own existence. In the history presented by the _Defiant_ , the Empire did not exist and Sato I had never risen to seize its throne. The alternate Hoshi Sato was an entirely unremarkable Starfleet officer who retired to Tarsus IV and died in a famine there -- the idea of the Emperor and all the bounties of her palace succumbing to a famine was yet another proof that the _Defiant_ ’s stated provenance was true, for no Terran could have come up with such an absurdity. Sato II, cloned to be her forebear’s successor, obviously did not even exist; there was no need to fill the throne of a nonexistent Empire. Her very existence was a proof that these records were not entirely applicable to this reality.

But setting existential questions aside — a lesson that Sato II would have done well to keep in mind — there were far more urgent concerns to address. The Empire that Georgiou inherited was very good at reverse-engineering, reproducing and imitating new technologies and applying them to war; it was not very good at creating those new technologies in the first place. For a century, the Empire had coasted on the accumulated data from the _Defiant_ , which after all bore a hundred years’ worth of technological advancements and astrocartographic data. The question that loomed was: what would happen when the _Defiant_ data inevitably ran out, when Starfleet bumped up against the edges of known space with ships approaching obsolescence?

The flow of advancements had already slowed. New technologies had been incorporated, and conquests had been made, and those species’ resources had been absorbed. Sato II had ignored this. Perhaps she had been too complacent and blind to see, or perhaps she had been waiting for another technological bounty to come to her, whether from another alien species or universe entirely. The arrogance was astounding.

War was the social engine of the Empire. If Georgiou could not deliver more conquests, she would be dethroned in favor of a ruler who could. But if the flow of victories dried up entirely, beyond any single Emperor’s capability to restore, the Empire would face total collapse. War was all that the Empire knew; in the absence of any external enemies, Starfleet would disintegrate into factions making petty war on each other — war for war’s sake, and not the greater good of the Empire.

Steering the Empire to a more viable path, paving the way to build their _own_ way instead of cannibalizing the technologies and knowledge of others — would be the work of a lifetime, but there was no other way to fuel the Empire’s continued growth.

* * *

In defeating the Klingons on their own homeworld, Georgiou had made her name using guile when traditional brute-force military strategies had failed. This gave her some cover to increase funding for R&D and the sciences: it wasn’t weakness, but Georgiou simply acknowledging what had brought her to power (she had been an engineer once, too). At the same time, she sent out fleets on missions of exploration and conquest, to find new worlds and bring them into the Empire, to exact tribute and put down any unrest. Bread and circuses, as the saying went; the right hand and the left.

She also had to look inwards to shore up the Empire. Terran history was full of warnings about empires that overstretched themselves and collapsed under their own weight. Georgiou had no intention of ruling an empire in decline, so civil fields long neglected — agriculture, infrastructure, and so forth — were reexamined. Sato II had disregarded everything other than the military, apparently content to rest on the laurels of past conquests. An easily manipulable ruler might have been more convenient for the Admiralty, but Sato II was gone, and Georgiou now reigned.

From her new position atop the power structure of the Empire, Georgiou had a new perspective on the typical political maneuverings of Starfleet. No wonder the Admiralty had disapproved of her mutiny, no matter how appreciated its results. Murder was an inefficient method of resource management and career advancement; she could recognize this even though it was how how she had claimed her throne. Now that Georgiou was the spider at the center of power, rather than another fly struggling for survival, she could see the inefficiencies and constant disruptions of violent personnel turnovers. The rule of the strong was the core tenet of Terran society, but she streamlined things where she could.

The years passed.

The pace of territorial expansions, which had spiked after the nadirs of Sato II’s rule, slowed. Georgiou efficiently crushed any attempts at rebellion, whose numbers also decreased as her grip on power strengthened. Michael grew up and graduated from the Academy, taking her place in Starfleet. She soon made a name for herself in her own right. Michael’s successes were some consolation for Georgiou considering the lack of progress on the technological front.

There were a few promising developments Georgiou was watching, and some minor advancements in sensors and weapons technology, but no breakthroughs were on the scale that the Empire needed. She knew that simply throwing money at the labs or threatening the scientists would do no good. Perhaps the Empire needed new blood; Georgiou even considered changing the official Terran treatment of aliens. Sato I had played them off each other in the early days of her reign, and finally used the Vulcans to secure her power base, but their influence had waned since. Vulcans had slingshotted Terrans into space — perhaps they would do it again? — but this strategy was not without its risks. The Vulcans today were a defeated race, a far cry from those who had made First Contact.

The revolutionary advancement Georgiou had been waiting for finally came from an astromycologist, of all fields. Unlike the others who had come to her, Stamets’ promises about the potential of the astromycelial network actually bore out as he demonstrated how it could be used as a power source of previously unknown proportions. Georgiou was less sure about Stamets’ wilder theories about using the network for travel, but if they were true then the standard warp drive would become obsolete, and the whole galaxy would now be within reach.

And much to Georgiou’s satisfaction, there was no mention of anything like this in the _Defiant_ data. The Terrans had finally come up with something entirely their own, without influence from other aliens or other dimensions.

Georgiou signed off on the proposal to build a new palace ship using a mycelial-powered reactor core. Finally, there would be an appropriate vessel to hold the seat of Terran authority, and the Emperor would no longer be planet-bound and reliant on Starfleet for protection and the execution of her will. The _Charon_ would prove to the galaxy, to the rebels and unconquered peoples alike, that the Empire was resurgent and looking outwards again.

When Michael — now commanding the _Shenzhou_ that Georgiou had once commanded — followed in her steps and handily defeated the Klingons in a battle informally called the Battle of the Binary Stars, Georgiou knew she had utterly repudiated the fate that Sato II and the _Defiant_ described. She had secured her legacy and set the Empire firmly on a new path. Greater glories awaited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mirror-universe First Contact was shown in the opening to ST:ENT's _In A Mirror Darkly_ and discussed by Georgiou in Discovery S3. And as previously stated, the _USS Defiant_ left the prime universe in 2268 and arrived in the mirror universe in 2155. I've also referenced the mirror universe short story _Age of the Empress_ for details about Sato I.
> 
> * * *
> 
> I'm still looking for a beta! Please let me know if you're interested.
> 
> The next chapter should be out March 15.


End file.
